Wheelz takes keys out of car sharing

Posted:  10/30/2012 9:01 AM

Airbnb has found success by letting people rent their homes or apartments to travelers they may have never met. Now another San Francisco startup called Wheelz is betting that car owners will want to make money with their vehicles in the same way.

Wheelz is launching its service to the general public Tuesday in its hometown, using technology that lets drivers unlock someone else's car with an app on their smartphone.

"It allows you take your car that's parked all the time and through no effort of your own, turn it into an income-generating asset," said chief executive officer and co-founder Jeff Miller. "That helps pay for the cost of owning it."

Wheelz joins a list of sometimes controversial services - such as Uber, SideCar, Tickengo and Lyft - that are trying to reshape  ridesharing and public transportation by tapping into the ubiquity of smartphones.

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